Nursing is, without a doubt, one of the noblest professions in the world. Nurses are often there as a support to patients even when they don’t have friends or families to do so. Being a nurse in the oncology department can be particularly challenging with cancer being a ruthless disease targeting all ages.
The nursing profession
Nursing is a health care sector profession that is focused on the care of patients with various illnesses. The main job of nurses is to maintain or help recover optimal health and quality of one’s life. In the past few decades, the nursing profession has encountered a process of diversification, letting nurses get specialization in the desired field. In the UK, there is an opportunity to become an advanced practice nurse. Advanced practice nurses are able to diagnose patients and even prescribe medications and necessary therapies. Nurses are often able to provide a much more personal and warmer, human approach to the patient, which means a lot.
Oncology
Oncology is a medical field that works on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. This is a field that absolutely needs nursing professionals, especially with numbers of cancer patients constantly rising. Cancer is a disease that targets everyone, no matter the age, profession or lifestyle. Often, patients must stay in the hospital because they require constant medical treatments, or they are admitted to nursing homes or need palliative care at home that family members can’t provide.
Nursing professionals are here to help with prescribed medications or treatments, to teach and help the patient to achieve a healthy lifestyle that helps in fighting the disease. Healthy lifestyle means exercise, removing potentially harmful things out of the living environment, and healthy food. Many food production companies turned to the production of healthy, so-called superfoods that help people achieve that healthy lifestyle. Companies like Foodiq create functional foods that give all the necessary and strong nutrients to the body. Here, nursing professionals play a crucial role and it is important that they are educated, enjoy their job and keep pace with new trends in oncology treatments.
Nursing seminars
Seminars are a good way to keep in trend with all the news in the field, share experiences and gain new knowledge. Topics of seminars can vary, from nutrition and the importance of exercise to palliative care and even specialized nutrition or exercise for various types of cancer. Some nurses will attend seminars because they believe that is what they are expected to do, but good nurses will see this as an opportunity to deepen their knowledge in order to help people that rely on them. Often, oncology patients spend a long time with their nurses and trust them more than their doctors, and see them as a person to confide in and get the truth and answers from. This is just another strong reason why nurses should attend seminars and work on their profession, as they are often seen as heroes and saints in the eyes of their patients.
